i'm old now, so i remember dr. king. i was a young teacher in boston and a white guy living in the black community, and the black ministers did me an honor of letting me stand by his side the first time he came to preach in boston common, and his words changed my life forever. that is when i turned my back on an academic life and decided to teach fourth graders in our poorest neighborhoods. i get so angry on his birthday or on martin luther king day -- i heard politicians who turned their back totally on every single thing he lived and died for, never lifted a finger to bring an end to apartheid in schooling, which is now at a higher rate than it was the year he died, and they say, "i, too, had a dream." you cannot play games with the dreams of our prophets. dr. king did not say he had a dream that someday in the canyons of our cities, north and south, we will have tests and anxiety-ridden schools. that was not his dream. legacy,pped apart his and then we use his name in vain. my thing, as you know, is children. children